Roberts on Republicans

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21 May 2014

Russ Roberts on The Republican Party:

Being a classical liberal, I believe smaller government makes room for us to work together in all the truly meaningful ways we come together in a free society — building charities, nonprofits and businesses. Bigger government stifles the ways we help each other through our voluntary choices. It throttles civil society — the network of connections between us that emerges when government gets out of the way. I’m against government spending on education, the poor and the elderly because I actually think voluntary bottom-up initiatives do more to make the world a better place than the top-down, coercive approach of big government. As the Friedrich Hayek character says in my rap video with filmmaker John Papola, “Fight of the Century”: “Give us a chance so we can discover/the most valuable ways we can serve one another.”

Until the Republicans find a way to make the case for smaller government in a way that contributes not just to greater after-tax income but to human flourishing, they will struggle to win elections, they will cede the moral high ground to Democrats and they will never be the stars of a Netflix series.